The Key & the Flame Read online

  Holly’s stomach jumped. “I’d better get back. I didn’t tell anyone I was taking a walk.”

  “Suit yourself. You’ve a brother, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Ben.”

  “I’ll come by later then,” Everett said, as if Ben were the only reason he might. “Did you know Hawkesbury’s got a castle?”

  Holly’s heart fluttered. A castle?

  “Course, nobody lives in it now, but it’s fun to poke round in. I could show you sometime, if you’re interested.”

  “Sure,” said Holly. “That would be great.”

  “Right then, Holly Shepard.” Everett gave her a half-smile. “You can walk in my wood if you want. It’s all right.”

  I’ll walk where I want anyway, Holly thought, but it seemed more polite to say, “Okay. Thanks.”

  “See you.”

  She waited for Everett to walk away, but he stood there, as if guarding the forest. Why didn’t he go home? She could feel the shape of the key in her pocket. Something incredible had happened, and only she had seen it. Everett half smiled again. “I thought you needed to get home.”

  And then, on cue, Holly heard her mother’s shrill voice calling her name. She sighed. Well, she had all summer, and Everett couldn’t stand there forever. She gave a little wave. “Yeah, I do. See you later.” She headed back up the path, dragging her feet in the direction of her cottage.

  —

  It wasn’t quite accurate to say that the wood in the valley north of Hawkesbury belonged to Everett Shaw, as he had told the American girl. But it might as well have. Hawkesbury was a small village with only a few thousand people—every one of whom he knew by sight—and there wasn’t much to do apart from hanging round the shops or exploring the wood. Yet for all of that, Everett, who stood very confidently until Holly had disappeared round the path, shivered with a slight chill of unease as he stood in the glade.

  It was the way Holly had acted—not like she was playing, and not like she was lying, but more like she’d really seen something odd and then tried to laugh it off. It was rubbish, of course, opening a tree with a key, even an ancient iron key like she’d had in her hand. So why even say so?

  He wouldn’t have said as much to Holly, because he hadn’t seen any such thing, but he had heard something—a kind of humming—and felt something—a sort of current. It reminded him of the time he had seen his neighbor’s house struck by lightning, right on the telly’s aerial, when he was out playing in mud puddles, which his mother strictly forbade during a thunderstorm. It was like that: the humming in the air, the fine hairs on his arms bristling, his heart thrumming as if plugged into a socket.

  Trees, of course, don’t have electrical currents, and Everett knew that. But there was no doubt that his own wood, which he knew as well as you know your own backyard, felt very different today.

  Not that he hadn’t felt something like it before.

  To be sure, nothing exactly like it, but sometimes, hopping from rock to rock along the slopes, or swinging on the tire he’d strung up on the eastern end, he’d stop, panting, and listen.

  He wasn’t sure what he was listening for, but it was almost as if he could hear something, or if he waited a moment, he would hear something. He’d walk round a bend, catch an odd glimpse out of the corner of his eye, a light or reflection, feel a vibration on the path, just faint. And then nothing.

  Until today.

  And Mr. Gallaway had given Holly that key?

  The old man lived on Hodges Close, where he leased several cottages, including Holly’s. Everett supposed he made a bit of money that way, but Gallaway’s own cottage was tiny, and he didn’t even have a car. Everett had never seen any family come to visit him, though he noticed Mr. Gallaway posted a good number of letters, which almost no one did anymore. Everett had known him forever, and they were friendly enough, but Gallaway kept to himself and was sometimes gruff. Everett had been a bit frightened of him when he was a kid. The old man certainly had never given him anything. He didn’t even know Holly. Why give her a present? Or at least, if he was giving out presents, why not to him? He must know that Everett and his mum struggled on a bit, ever since his dad had left, and it wouldn’t kill him to be friendlier to them, would it?

  Everett stepped out of the glade off the main path and started down a slope, following the meandering stream away from Hawkesbury to his favorite spot in the wood, where a fallen tree made a bridge over the water. He walked out to the very middle and sat down, dangling his feet over the stream. Holly seemed nice enough, for a girl. Plus, she had a brother. That right there would be enough reason to get to know them. It wasn’t like he had loads of kids to hang out with. Most of his schoolmates lived in outlying towns, and Blake Worsley, his best mate, had moved to Bristol last year. He missed Blake; with him gone, that git Sean Fellowes had taken to making Everett’s life miserable pretty much on a daily basis.

  But why’d he have to mention Darton Castle to Holly straightaway? It was his place. Something about her, the way she kept walking round that oak tree, and then stood so straight frowning at him, made him want to show her the castle. Almost like he had to show it to her, for some reason.

  Maybe there wasn’t anything to Holly’s present, but one thing Everett was sure about: She was hiding something.

  And he was going to find out what.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  The Shaws

  When Holly reached the creek, she started across and then hesitated. She hadn’t heard her mother calling again. Maybe she could go back, just for a minute. Everett had probably gone home by now.

  She started to clamber back up the creek bank.

  “Miss Holly?”

  Mr. Gallaway appeared out of a cluster of birch trees. Holly tried not to look disappointed. “Oh, hi.”

  “Your mum was a bit worried about you. She asked if I’d look for you, as I know the wood so well.”

  “Sorry. I was just out for a walk.” Holly slid down the bank and stepped across the creek to join him. He held out a hand and helped her up the rise, and they started back down the path.

  “Did you find anything interesting?” Mr. Gallaway asked after a moment.

  Holly glanced at him sharply, but he had taken a pipe out of his pocket and was thumping it against his palm, then peering into it, hardly watching where he was going. “Is there something interesting to find?” she asked.

  The old man shrugged. “I suppose. If you know where to look.”

  Holly thought of the oak tree she’d split open, and a very mundane and disappointing thought occurred to her. “Do you get earthquakes here very often?”

  “Earthquakes? I should say not. Although technically, they can happen anywhere. But I don’t recall one in all the time I’ve spent in Britain, which is considerable.”

  “What about power lines? Is there maybe an electrical plant somewhere nearby? Or wires buried underground?” Holly was thinking of the humming she’d heard.

  “Not in this direction,” said Mr. Gallaway. “On the south side of the village, yes. But this wood, the valley, the hills beyond—it’s all quite primitive. Ancient, in fact.”

  Their path sloped upward over some fallen rocks, and Mr. Gallaway grasped a sapling to haul himself up, then turned to give Holly a hand. She wanted to ask him about the oak tree, and more especially, the beech trees that grew in a circle around it. She was quite sure that her key would fit those keyholes, but then what? What would those doors open up?

  Grown-ups hated to hear kids talk about anything especially strange; she knew this from experience. Usually, they’d put one hand on your forehead and look at you oddly and ask if you needed to lie down for a while with the shades drawn. But Mr. Gallaway seemed a different sort of grown-up.

  He glanced at her sideways. “Something on your mind?”

  “Sort of, yeah. I was wondering . . . You did give me the key, didn’t you, Mr. Gallaway? Where did you get it? Because it doesn’t seem exactly normal, and I’m
not sure what it’s for—”

  “It’s for opening things,” said the old man.

  All of a sudden Holly found she had to walk rather fast to keep up with him. “Okay, I know that, but I mean, what is it supposed to open?”

  “Things that are locked, naturally.”

  “But what kinds of things?”

  “All kinds of things.”

  The terrain had gotten hilly, with lots of climbing and awkward passages around muddy, rutted paths. He was taking a different route than Holly had coming in, and it took some concentration to watch where she was going.

  “But not trees, right? I mean, keys don’t open trees.”

  “Certainly not in the usual course of events.”

  “But they could? Is that what you mean?” Holly asked.

  The old man had disappeared around a bend, and Holly had to push aside some overgrown shrubs to find the path. “Mr. Gallaway? Are you still here?”

  “We’re nearly out,” he called ahead of her. “Just follow the path.”

  A moment later, Holly broke out of the trees and saw him just ahead, at the foot of the steps leading up to her cottage. She ran to catch up to him. “Mr. Gallaway, wait. Why did you give me that key? I mean, why me?”

  His blue eyes looked watery, and he smiled at her briefly, then turned away. “That,” he said, “is a story for another time.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Shepard appeared under the arbor at the top of the steps.

  “Well, there you are! I had to send Mr. Gallaway after you, Holly! You need to apologize to him.”

  “I just went for a walk,” Holly said.

  “You should’ve told us. You could’ve fallen down a well for all I knew.”

  Holly climbed the stairs and stepped through the arbor. “Fallen down a well?”

  “It happens.” Her mother pursed her lips.

  “Well,” said Mr. Gallaway, “no harm done. Safe and sound. I had best be off. You do know where to find me, Mrs. Shepard? Up the close, Number Seven. Come by if you need anything.”

  Mrs. Shepard relaxed a little. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Gallaway.”

  As he turned away, Mrs. Shepard added, “Oh, but let me give you my numbers.” She pulled a notepad and pen from her bathrobe pocket. “This is the house phone and this is my cell number. Also, here’s the office in Oxford, and the one in London, where I’ll be occasionally . . . and of course my husband will be here most of the time, but if not, here’s his cell. Oh, and our e-mail addresses.” She tore off the note and handed it to Mr. Gallaway, then poised the pen over the notepad. “And how can I reach you?”

  “Just come by if you need anything,” the old man repeated. “I don’t own a telephone.”

  Mrs. Shepard was too stunned to respond as he raised a hand and disappeared around the path.

  —

  Because it was Sunday, which her parents had long ago decreed as Family Day, Holly hardly had a chance to think about the strange happenings in the wood, let alone sneak off for another look. First there was a lengthy family meeting about rules, and then they all took turns in the shower, and everyone was given chores to do.

  And just when they’d finally been dismissed (sometimes Holly’s family was a little like the army), a sharp rapping came from the front door. Mr. Shepard opened it, and in breezed a slender, harried-looking woman bearing a covered dish and, behind her, the boy Holly had met in the wood.

  “We’re the Shaws, I’m Emily, and this is Everett,” gushed the woman. “We thought you’d be ready for lunch. Everett told us he’d met your Holly in the wood. And you must be Steven, how lovely! Mr. Gallaway said you’d be arriving yesterday. You’re a journalist, aren’t you? And Laura, isn’t it? These must be the children! Holly I’ve already heard about, and you are . . . ?”

  Emily Shaw had already said all this before quite getting in the door, and she so startled Ben that he didn’t realize it was his turn to speak until his mother cut in, “This is Ben,” and motioned for the Shaws to sit down.

  Now that company was here, Holly knew her chances of going back to the forest were slim. They had to sit at the table and eat politely and pretend to like the lunch, which was some kind of potpie. Once they’d had what Mrs. Shaw called the “pudding”—really a kind of blackberry crisp—Everett turned to Ben and said, “D’you have any video games?”

  “Not a console or anything, but I have a bunch on the computer.”

  “Do you have Planeterra Four?”

  “I have Planeterra Five,” Ben said proudly. “There’s a whole extra level on the sixth holodeck, and a bunch of new creatures on the space walk.”

  “Could I have a go?” Everett asked, and the boys jumped up and disappeared.

  Mrs. Shaw turned to Holly. “Go along, love. Don’t feel you have to sit here with the boring grown-ups.”

  “Can I go outside, Mom?” she asked.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Shaw cut in before her mother could answer. “Go on upstairs with the boys. Everett! Holly’s coming up too!”

  The look Holly’s mother gave her said it would be rude not to do what Mrs. Shaw said, and Holly’s look back said that sometimes boys go off together and she didn’t really care, and Holly’s mother’s look said that she didn’t care, Holly was to go upstairs, and Holly’s father’s look said couldn’t Holly go on outside if she wanted, and Holly’s look to her father said thank you. But in the end, without a word being exchanged, Holly trudged upstairs to see what the boys were doing.

  She recognized the spacey music and little explosions of Ben’s Planeterra Five game as she walked in the room. He and Everett had the laptop on the floor and were stretched out on their stomachs in front of it. They didn’t notice Holly. She watched them for a moment, then reached into her pocket. She rubbed the key’s cool, worn surface. It vibrated for a split second.

  “Aw man!” cried Ben.

  The laptop screen had flickered out.

  “Is it just the monitor?” Everett asked.

  “Naw. The whole thing’s cut out. Gol darn it! The game’s not even saved.”

  Holly turned her laugh into a cough.

  Ben turned around. “What did you do?”

  “Me? I’m just standing here.”

  Ben muttered something like “Girls” under his breath while he tried in vain to restart the computer, but Everett stood up.

  “I could show you that castle, if you like,” he said to Holly.

  “Okay,” she said in an offhand way, covering up the fact that as long as she was stuck with Everett, she wanted to see the castle more than anything.

  “What? Where’re you going?” Ben scrambled to his feet.

  “There’s an old castle across the valley. It’s pretty cool,” Everett said. “D’you want to come see?”

  “Is it far?” Ben wasn’t much of a walker.

  “Not very. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  “Maybe you should stay and work on getting that computer going,” Holly suggested. “It’s not going to fix itself.”

  “It’s just the weird power supply in this house,” Ben said coolly. “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

  Downstairs, Everett explained to Mrs. Shepard where they were going and why it wasn’t dangerous or far, and how he knew the area well, and he’d make sure they were back in a couple of hours. “Everett loves that old place,” Mrs. Shaw bubbled. “He’s rather a British history buff.”

  “Maybe we should all go,” said Mrs. Shepard. “It sounds very interesting.”

  Holly caught her father’s eye, and he said, “Let’s leave it for today. You have all those files you wanted to go through before tomorrow.”

  “Oh well, that’s true,” her mother conceded, and looked as if her mind had already begun sorting papers. Holly smiled at Mr. Shepard and followed the boys outside. She could spare an afternoon to look at a castle. She thrust her hand into her pocket and ran her index finger over the iron key. The magic could wait.

  What she did not realize, of course, was that she was c
arrying the magic with her.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  The Castle

  The sun was high and warm now. Everett led the way down the hill, and behind her Holly could hear Ben stepping carefully, calling, “Hey! Wait up!”

  At the bottom, Everett pointed across the valley at the hill that had been shrouded in mist earlier that morning. Nestled at the top was a high stone wall with a tower at either end. “That’s Darton Castle,” Everett said.

  “Is that what you call ‘not far’?” Ben asked.

  “Oh, go home and play with your Planet Terror,” Holly snapped.

  “It’s Planeterra. You know it is.”

  “It’s closer than it looks,” Everett told him. “And there’s steps, like on our hill. Course”—he looked skeptically at Holly—“it might be a bit of a climb for a girl.”

  “I climb the rock wall at home all the time,” Holly said, and stifled the urge to shove past him. “Let’s go.”

  The tramp across the valley was longer than even Holly had expected, and the climb up the next hill—stairs or no stairs—was steep. She even felt a little sorry for Ben, who she could hear wheezing behind her. She turned to him and was considerate enough to whisper.

  “Do you have your inhaler?”

  “No,” he whispered back fiercely. “And I don’t”—puff—“need it. Quit treating me”—puff—“like I’m”—puff—“a baby.”

  “Okay, fine.” She shrugged and pushed ahead.

  “Almost there,” Everett called over his shoulder. A moment later, the steps widened and they came upon the castle.

  The hill was broad and springy with heather. A cold, stone cylinder topped with a toothlike edge rose a hundred feet in front of them. It was the sort Holly herself had made in the sand. The long wall stretched south to where the hill dropped off down a rocky precipice to the river. What had looked like a toy from the valley now seemed more like a prison. Holly shrugged off a chill. Silly, but she couldn’t help glancing back at the green valley, as if it might have vanished. Seeing the castle up close unsettled her, like walking through a sunny meadow and coming upon a long-abandoned gallows.